Teaching and Learning to the Highest Levels of Language Proficiency - Sharings from the Journal of Distinguished Language Proficiency and More (Book Review by N. Lord)

 


Book review from Issue 8 of the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies --


REVIEW

 

Dornyei, Zoltan; Mentzelopoulos, Katarina

Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency: Motivation, Cognition and Identity

Channel View Publications

2022

 

Series Editors: Sarah Mercer, Universitat Graz, Austria and Stephen Ryan, Waseda University, Japan

Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching: 18

Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, (2022)

 

Natalia Lord, Learning Consultation Service, School of Language Studies, Foreign Service Institute (retired)

 

SUMMARY

 

This book analyzes the findings of a research project that Zoltan Dornyei, a prolific and esteemed contributor to the field of language learning, designed for his students at the University of Nottingham, when his course, the Psychology of Bilingualism and Language Learning, moved online. This is unfortunately a posthumous publication, for Zoltan Dornyei passed away earlier this fall. His co-author Katarina Metzelopoulos opens the volume by sharing her memories of working with him.

 

 Dornyei had asked his students to identify second language (L2) learning success stories, adult learners who managed to achieve nativelike L2 proficiency studying their L2 after puberty and without extensive experience in an L2 environment earlier. These champions of language learning often pass as native speakers with interlocutors conversing in their native language. They can blend in fully. His students found thirty such elite language learners whose learning paths are described in the companion volume, Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Native like Proficiency. As a group they did not take aptitude or proficiency tests.

 

This volume represents an in-depth, qualitative research report following academic conventions, while the companion publication presents the unique life narratives of those thirty individuals who arrived at native like L2 proficiency.

EVALUATION

 

Both volumes are of interest to anyone interested in the process of language learning: in teaching, counseling, or seeking to improve an already very high level of L2. The stories are irresistible and an examination of chapter topics reveals attention to such important topics as: forging an L2 identity, sources of persistence, attention to pronunciation, intensive effort and strategic learning, cognition and other facilitative learner characteristics, a unique bond with the chosen language, to name a few. While a review of the literature on exceptional language learners is presented in the first chapter, every chapter includes references to previous studies that are relevant to what is being discussed in that chapter. There are eleven pages of reference works that are used effectively throughout the volume to help place these learners’ experiences and insights into the continuum of exploring L2 learning at the highest levels of achievement. In discussing learning strategies, for example:

 

“What emerges from the existing reviews (Bierdon & Pawlak, 2016: Hyltenstam et al., 2018; Leaver & Campbell, 2014; Moyer, 2021) is that native like and near-native like learners adopt highly personalized learning strategies and are, in fact, often largely self-taught.”(p.7)

 

Canadian participant Kristopher is a case in point. He started studying Mandarin in high school after a very negative experience with French in grade school. Kristopher met a Chinese family and asked if he could visit them. Every day after school he just sat with them in their living room, listening. He started to learn Japanese at the age of 22 while living in the country.  There he visited a local pub to just sit and listen to everyone around him. He didn’t speak to others in the early stages of his language learning. He is currently a professor of  Japanese literature in Japan. He is taken for a native speaker (when his interlocutors are not able to see him) in both Mandarin and Japanese.

 

For Kristopher, as well as for many of the other participants, the role of pronunciation was of paramount importance. An entire chapter is devoted to this sub-skill. Kristopher strove to get each tone exactly right. He also sang Japanese folk songs with a group. Timur, from Kazakhstan, worked on his English with linguistic programs and was thus able to identify that his initial “T” sounds needed to be aspirated. Joy, a Canadian living in Iceland, strove to sound like her husband. She was both musical, regularly singing in church, and a good mimic. Others referred to mimicking their interlocutors, whether consciously or unconsciously. For many, music played an important role in their  L2 and they identified as being musically inclined, but at least 10% of the participants called attention to their being musically challenged.

 

The authors wonder whether current trends that pay only cursory attention to pronunciation   in foreign language (FL) education haven’t impeded some highly successful FL learners from crossing over into the group studied here. They suggest that FL learners can perhaps turn to the acting profession for inspiration and guidance. Actor Amy Walker has a YouTube channel focused on accents and a coaching practice, for example. Actors wishing to audition for a wider variety of roles work on specific accents to depict a character they might not normally play. Conquering the accent allows them to enter a new world, just as the participants of this study were able to fully enter their L2 identities.

 

Previous studies of very advanced students have focused primarily on educated adult learners in professional training programs of various types (Leaver, Ehrman & Shekhtman, 2005 and Leaver, 2003). There has been a prescriptive element in evidence suggesting many possible ways to enrich the program and the instruction, as well as the self- efficacy of the learner.

 

This study, however, provides no such practical suggestions. The group studied here is younger. Two participants are 16 and four others are in their 20s. Many are immigrants and their educational backgrounds vary considerably. This study may not be particularly relevant for academic FL teaching and learning. It could, however, be very useful for all those working with immigrant FL programs in high school and community college. It could also benefit student counselors and the students themselves who may need to be inspired by those who overcame various obstacles to achieving nativelike proficiency. The ability to become linguistically indistinguishable from one’s peer group is profoundly significant and life-changing for an immigrant. The current study begins to explore this. It is a good start and there is much more to be learned.

 

See Table of Contents for other reviews.

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We now have available for individual purchase each of the feature articles from issue 8 of the journal at a very accessible price and will make the feature articles available from other issues as time goes on. Check our webstore to see what we have at any given time. We will announce and link each of these individually in upcoming blog posts.

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